According to one source, the Scudder-Smith (or Smith-Scudder) House at 17 Main Street in Newtown was built in 1905 as a two-family house for two sisters. It was also the home of Arthur J. Smith, publisher of the Newtown Bee newspaper which began in 1877.
The Colonial Revival house at 10 Main Street in Newtown was built 1930. Its first owner built it after selling his land to the state as part of the the parcel where the Fairfield Hills State Hospital was constructed. Later residents of the house included a Judge and a doctor who had his office and examination room in his home.
This is my 200th Hartford Post! To celebrate this milestone, I’m announcing that I have a book coming out later this summer called A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut, published by The History Press.
Please watch this site for more announcements soon and “like” the Facebook page for the book:
http://www.facebook.com/AGuideToHistoricHartfordConnecticut
Also visit the site I’ve created for the book at
http://guidetohistorichartford.historicbuildingsct.com/.
The Flatiron Building in the above picture (called flatiron for its distinctive shape, resembling the famous Flatiron Building in New York City) is at 529-543 Ann Uccello Street in Hartford, between Ann and High Streets. The Neoclassical Revival commercial structure was designed by Frederick R. Comstock and was built in 1896. It has been vacant since a fire in 2004.
The Jacob Robbins House, at 244 Old Main Street in Rocky Hill, has the appearance of a Greek Revival-style home, but the earliest parts of the colonial structure date to around 1770. The facade is dominated by a large Greek Portico, that was only added in about 1920. This may be the home of the Jacob Robbins who is said to have married a niece of Noah Webster.
Frederic S. Newcomb was a dry goods merchant in New London. In 1896-1897 he erected a Shingle-style house at 31 Vauxhall Street, designed by G.W. Dietrict of New York. The house has pink granite on the ground floor, which was brought by barge from Maine. Since 1953, the house has been used as a convalescent hospital called Beechwood Manor.
In 1867, Congregational services began to be held in East Bridgeport in the Bethesda Mission Chapel on East Washington Street. A church was formally organized the following year and in 1870-1871, Park Street Congregational Church was built at the corner of Park and Barnum Streets, fronting Washington Park. The Gothic Revival building was designed by architect Abram Skaats. The church‘s membership peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, but declined after World War II. In 1988, Park Street Congregational Church merged with Trinity United Church of Christ of Trumbull to form Unity Hill United Church of Christ, located at 364 White Plains Road in Trumbull. The former Park Street Congregational Church is now Calvary Temple Christian Center.
Across from Old North Cemetery, on Main Street (formerly Windsor Avenue) in Hartford, are a pair of three-story brick buildings constructed in 1864-1865. Known as the Widows’ Homes, they were built for charitable purposes (housing Civil War widows) through a bequest by Lawson Ives, a manufacturer and member of the Pearl Street Congregational Church (since demolished). Plaques on the exterior of each of the two buildings memorialize Ives’ gift. According to the Annual Reports of the Board of Charities to the Governor for the Years Ending September 30, 1905 and 1906 (1907):
The Widows’ Homes at Nos. 210 and 216 Windsor avenue were established in 1867 by the will of Mr. Lawson C. Ives, an honored citizen of Hartford. The two Homes are under the management, respectively, of the pastors and prudential committees of the Farmington Avenue Congregational Church and of the Park Congregational Church, who were incorporated for that purpose by the General Assembly of 1867. Each Home contains twelve apartments of three rooms each, and all occupants who are able to do so, pay a monthly rental of $2 for front and $1.50 for back rooms. The inmates do their own work and enjoy a degree of homelike privacy not found in a large institution.
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